Angel Standing By
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day five hundred and ninety: As he awakes from his coma, Burt comes to evaluate a part of his life and makes a choice.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 28th cycle. Now cycle 29!_

**TOP 16, TAKE 2: **_Okay so a couple cycles back, I did my second 'top of Glee at the moment' cycle. Now since I was still in university and such at the time, those were planned a while back, before the second half of the season every started. This made it that by the time that cycle rolled around I realized that some things had changed... Things were added, removed, bumped up... Point is it didn't really reflect where I was anymore. So I decided 'what the heck, I'll do another one ASAP!' And so here we are :) This is my revised Top 16 (of course I HAD to plan before the finale, so there are still a couple things missing like Samcedes, Unholy Trinity, etc, but let's assume they're there ;) They'll get some love in coming cycles ;)) So off we go!  
><strong>Coming in at number fifteen...<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>"Angel Standing By"<br>Burt/Carole, Kurt **

He wasn't aware of it at first, that he was starting to drift in and out of consciousness after being out for so long. Wherever he was, he wouldn't remember it. All he would retain, if briefly, would be glimpses… faces swimming overhead… A nurse here, a doctor there… Kurt, his son, his frightened boy… and then her… Carole… The first time he saw her up there, blurred but illuminated, he couldn't even put a name to her, but he thought she was some kind of angel, there to look out for him… Would she take him away? No, he couldn't leave, he couldn't leave his son on his own… Oh, but she was so beautiful… But then he remembered who she was, and all he wanted was to hold her image forever…

The first time he woke up, truly woke up, beyond just drifting by, the room was quiet. For a second he thought he'd died, but then he could feel… pain… It was real. His eyes searched where they could, and then he saw them. It must have been late… Carole sat on the couch, asleep, as Kurt, also asleep, rested with his head against her shoulder, her arm around him, protective…

It wasn't the first time he thought about the idea… Carole, and marriage… The combination of those two concepts only felt natural, but up until now he hadn't actually considered it as an actual thing… But looking at her there he knew that, if he could just recover, and if he could just make everything come together, then he would ask her… He would propose to her.

She was everything… everything he didn't think he'd have again. It was hard not to believe some doors had been shut forever, after losing Liz the way he did. She had been everything, too, and then she'd been gone… There was no preparing for that, whether the death was sudden or slow coming; nothing prepared you for the first time you walked through the door, into a home that felt wronged. Everything looked the same, in its place, as it should be, like she would still be there, except she wasn't… So many reminders, some more painful than others… some positively gut wrenching… The years had passed, and home had swallowed back the presence of one Liz Hummel, but then… then it began to show its allegiance to Carole Hudson… like it knew before he did that she was about to become so much more.

As much as he wanted to stay faithful to his son, which seemed to go hand in hand with staying faithful to his late wife, he could feel his heart reaching out to hers, to Carole. Even if there was more to it than that, the fact that she had gone through this losing of a spouse like he had, it did help. He knew that she would understand what he was feeling, because somewhere deep down she was feeling it, too.

He watched the two of them, sleeping there, and just as he was thinking that, if ever he should have died, then Carole would have taken in his son and cared for him either way, he saw her stirring in her sleep. Her eyes opened, just a moment, but long enough to register that his eyes were open as well, because she opened hers again, staring back. She didn't move right away, aware of the load on her side, but he could see her well up with the emotion and realization that he was awake… love, so much love. He wouldn't dream of disturbing Kurt's sleep, knowing he must have been having trouble with that while he was out cold, though his eyes must have shown how much he wanted Carole to come up nearer, now that she was awake. She was careful to get up while at the same time getting Kurt's head from her shoulder to a cushion on the couch. Once he was down, she finally moved to him, and he held out his hand at the same time as she reached out to him.

"Burt…" even her whispers cracked. He tried to speak, but she stopped him. "Don't, it's alright. You have to take it easy," she insisted, so he did as told. Instead he used his eyes to speak. He looked to Kurt – 'Is he alright?' "Better now," she told him. Then he looked to her – 'Are you alright?' She beamed, touching his cheek. "Better now," she repeated. He looked down – 'Am I alright?' "Well, we're working on that," she told him, and he smiled. He brought her hand to his lips. "I know," she was tearing up, and he shook his head – 'Don't cry.' "I'm sorry, can't help it." He nodded – 'Fair enough.' "They've all been up here, you know? The kids from Glee Club, and Schuester, and the guidance counsellor… That cheerleading coach was here, too, you know the one with the tracksuits," she revealed, and his eyes went wide – 'No way.' "Yeah, shocked me, too." She paused, perhaps to hold back another wave of tears. "Everyone's been waiting for you… None more than him," she didn't look back, but she knew who he meant. Burt looked at his son, looking so small, all curled up asleep on the couch. Would it have been selfish of him to want to wake him, even if the sleep was doing him a world of good? He just needed to have him there, to see him with his eyes… to hold his hand…

"Kurt…" he dared Carole's instructions to say his first word.

"Okay," she gave him a smile and moved to carefully wake him. He watched him open his eyes, briefly unaware of where he was, still in the grasp of sleep and away from all worry. Kurt's eyes found Carole, and then he sat up immediately, looking to the side to find his father staring back at him. Now he was crying, and Burt had no chance… With his son on one side of him, and the woman he now truly believed would be his wife someday soon, he could be nothing but content.

THE END

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>******always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!******

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong>PS: I'm going to work to find a way to make a list available of the various series, I just need to find a way to make the link available, since this site seems to have an issue with putting links to stuff ;)<strong>****


End file.
